Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

Criticizing a song, "Welcome to the Real World," a reviewer writes that for the composer "bumper-sticker platitudes like 'God is love' still soften the blows of the 'real' world." For the critic, "God is love" is a tired, meaningless phrase, about as significant as "This vehicle makes wide turns." That is one reviewer's reaction to a phrase that antedates bumpers by at least 2000 years. The implication is that a more original or striking phrase, whether true or not, would be better.

But does the phrase, "God is love," soften the blows of the real world? In the context above it's clear that to soften the blows is to refuse to face what really is. The reviewer's point itself, however, qualifies as a platitude: that religious belief is a way of fooling ourselves in the face of an unfriendly universe. War seems a constant in human history; and so are murder, oppression, hatred, victimization, abuse. We can, of course, balance that by citing all the love, generosity, simple goodness, even heroism, that exist.

In the critic's mind is the assumption that goodness and love cannot be real. That would be "wish-fulfillment." Somehow what we desire and long for -- love, peace, goodness -- is excluded beforehand. Why? The reviewer believes that our deepest desires are doomed to frustration; that God cannot be love.

We can say more. The people who try to deal with the world's woes are often those who do believe that "God is love," that love has been given us in Christ, and we must share it. Welcome to the real world -- where hate and bad things coexist with love and good deeds, where we know both terrorists and firefighters.

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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